CHQ — “This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops. Do not be afraid to break out of comfortable and routine modes of living in order to take up the challenge of making Christ known in the modern metropolis.” St. John Paul the Great

Christians are called to follow an almost unfollowable example; a man who, in defiance of all authority, preached the Gospel of God’s power, love and forgiveness. And who, as the Son of God, set aside his earthly power and allowed himself to be crucified to redeem a world of sinners.

Holding such beliefs at any time, but especially in pagan Rome or secular America is bound to draw the scrutiny of those in power because central to the Christian world view is the belief that secular rulers have no power over us – Caesar’s image may be on the coin, but God’s image is upon us.

Indeed, being a Christian is almost a guarantee that Christ’s opponents will use coercion, violence and government power to persecute you if you follow him.

But for most Americans, living as we do in a still relatively free country, persecution of Christians is perceived as happening only somewhere over there on the other side of the world.

Distance serves as anesthetic said Fay Voshell writing for The American Thinker. Certainly it’s not happening here. Not in the United States of America! Christians in America who look with horror on the persecution of their co-religionists in the Middle East, Africa, Communist China and North Korea assume they are safe from persecution.